


Hold onto me

by wordswehavesaid



Series: Tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But Mostly Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oliver doesn't go on vacation, Post-Singularity, Pre-Relationship, Roomates!verse, mentioned character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 11:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5125373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswehavesaid/pseuds/wordswehavesaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A visit to Central City shows Oliver that despite pushing everyone else away Barry needs more help than ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold onto me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starrxlorrd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrxlorrd/gifts).



> This was a drabble for the awesome Robby that turned into it's own alternate universe. Expect future parts of this!

“Nice place you got here.”

Barry looks up at him from where he’s slumped in one of the chairs of STAR lab’s cortex, and Oliver is nearly overwhelmed by how jarringly familiar this all is. The cold emptiness, the defeat, the retreat into isolation and duty, carrying on simply because it’s the only thing left - but this is all him. Not Barry, never Barry, this _shouldn’t be_  Barry. How has this happened?

Barry’s staring at him blankly for a second, like he’s not sure Oliver’s really there, but then he snorts. “Should’ve figured you wouldn’t trip the alarms. What are you doing here?”

“Seeing as all any news outlets want to talk about is this black hole that opened up over your city last month, I would’ve thought that’d be obvious,” he notes, stepping further into the room.

Barry looks down, face cast in shame. “I messed up,” he acknowledges.

“Barry, I came to check on you,” he clarifies, a little thrown by the other’s readiness to assume he’s come all this way just to judge. “I wanted to see if you were okay.” He’s rapidly coming to the conclusion, though, that Barry is not.

Particularly when the man looks back up at him, eyes dark with heavy bags under them and insists, “I am okay. And that’s the problem, Oliver. I messed up and I’m okay, but Eddie and Ronnie - Eddie and Ronnie died to fix my mess. Is that part of being a guy like us, too, or I am just a total screw-up?”

“No,” he tells him truthfully. “That’s part of this life.”

“And I’m just supposed to live with it?”

“You live with it  _because_  of it. You honor those sacrifices by continuing to do the best you can. You’re already doing that as the Flash,” he says, knowing the other man might not want it, but needs the praise. “But Barry, you can’t use your personal tragedies to push away the people you care about. That’s me, remember?”

That earns him a chuckle, wearied and wistful as it is. “I guess I’m not so emotionally healthy after all, huh?”

He’s pulling the younger man up out of the chair and into a hug before he knows it, or before Barry can do much besides go stiff in his embrace. Oliver’s never touched him in this way before, he realizes, he usually doesn’t to anyone. And he never initiates. But there’d been something so wrong, so broken about the other man in that moment the urge to try and do something about it had been overwhelming, laughable as this attempt is–

Barry lets out a shuddering breath and seems to sink into him as he rests his head. He’s needed this. From someone, and somehow Oliver’s been the first one to try. It also somehow doesn’t shatter this…whatever they have between them, that’s made Oliver turn around with Felicity on the way to wherever just the same as he’d raced to Central City when he’d gotten this man’s call for help. Barry hadn’t called this time but he seems just as grateful.

“Let me get you back to the Wests,” he suggests after a time because it just seems like the thing to say, but Barry shakes his head violently against his shoulder, nearly pulls right out of his arms.

“I can’t, not there, Iris is there and she - I can’t face her when Eddie’s–”

And he knows that same fear and pain, remembers how terrified he’d been to see Laurel that first time after Tommy…

“Then come home with me.” He thinks he believes it less than Barry that the words have fallen from his mouth. But he repeats them, again, something about the idea appealing to him more and more. “Come home with me. You can run back here for work or emergencies, Barry, but you shouldn’t be alone like this. Trust me.”  _Learn from my mistakes, let me help you_ , he doesn’t say.

Barry still chokes out something that sounds like a sob, his hands fisting in the back of Oliver’s shirt. “Okay,” he gets out in a voice thick with the tears he’s been trying desperately to hold in.

Oliver places a hand to the back of Barry’s head. He’s opened himself to a whole new slew of questions and concerns when they do go back together - and likely not just from Barry once both their teams get wind of this arrangement he’s suggested - but he feels like he’s done something right.

For now, though, he’s content to just hold Barry, however long he needs.


End file.
